Epiphany
is a wonderful and exciting time of hope. While Advent is full of
expectation about the coming birth and the Potential of a Messiah ,
Epiphany is the next step...it is the time of the liturgical year when
we point to the young child that is actually here and dream the dreams
of who he will grow up to be and what he might do and how he might do
it.

It is interesting to read these scripture selections together
trying to think about how they might fit in to today's context. All of
them were looking toward how a Messiah, a King, a Saviour might look
and act and conduct himself. These were dreams of how he would rule,
who he would protect, how he would enter the scene, etc. And when we
look at the characteristics they were hoping for, they are not far off
from the high expecations we have for our leaders today. Without
intending any diminishment to the Messiah or to Boy Souts of America,
it is almost like they (and we) were hoping for the ideal Boy Scout -
trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient,
cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.....of course, the
Israelites (and we) would also like to add Just, Strong, Brave, Wise,
Unfailing, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient.

As you read the passage from Isaiah, you likely recognize that the
gospel writers also read (and used parts of) this passage from Isaiah.
The writer was speaking to some folks that were living through a dark
time themselves. Oppression, confusion, loss of home. And he was
dreaming with them that a better day is on the horizon.

Psalm 72 is a beautiful entreaty of God about the hoped-for
attributes of their king. There is a hope and dream for the perfect
leader.

In this week's selection of Paul's letter to the
followers of Jesus in Ephesus he is using he own experience to talk
about some of the wonders of the Messiah. Many times prior to this,
folks have talked about how a Messiah will bring hope or peace to all
the nations, and Paul is giving a concrete example. He talks about how
Jesus came not only for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles (i.e. the
rest of the world.....for this audience and at the time, folks were either Jews or
Gentiles...no third option).

And in the passage from Matthew's gospel we get the classic
Epiphany scene. It is the story of the wise men, magi, philosophers,
astrologers coming from the east to visit the "King of the Jews". Now
there is plenty of political background that is illustrated in this
little visit...think about the ramifications of this visit. These were
folks that literally followed the universe to Jerusalem and then to
Bethelem to find the new King. There was a universal appeal to the hope that was envisioned beneath this star.

Visions of the future are often shaped by present circumstance. We
project our hopes on leaders and events and opportunities. But we (not
just leaders and events and opportunties) probably play an important
role in how visions are fulfilled as well. As people of God, we
recognize that we do not fulfill visions alone...we recognize that we
cannot completely change the world...but we can change the future in
community, listening for God. And the vision of hope cast 2000 years
ago still takes shape (or falls apart) in the wake of our actions.
Hope expressed accomplishes far less than hope enacted.

We have asked a version of this question a lot in
the last few weeks, and it still seems important. What were these
folks hoping for and expecting of a Messiah? What are we hoping for
and expecting from how God is present in our lives today? And how do we act on our hope and bring light into the world?

God,
Seed us with hope
and empower us to be
fuel,
light,
action,
and love
for the birth
of your Kingdom.
Amen.

Spoiler warning: This week we are reading past Christmas! So if you
don't want to move past the birth narrative, set this one aside until
late Christmas night! But in some ways, this is also a good lens
through which to consider Jesus' human reality.

It
is
a heavy responsibility to raise up a child. And it is a
responsibility that exists beyond parenthood. In our own slice of the
world, kids are shaped by teachers, neighbors, church members, Sunday
School teachers, coaches, band directors, Scout leaders, pastors.
Television, radio, the internet. Every soul is being shaped by every
moment by every thing / person / sight / sound it encounters.

The lives we touch have potential - untapped and potentially
intense future impact. This isn't a new phenomenon. Here in the wake
of Christmas, we pause to consider some of the adults in Jesus'
childhood world - aunts, uncles, parents, rabbis, neighbors, friends.
They didn't know they were shaping the living God - or did they? They
didn't know that heaven was touching earth in their midst - or did
they? They probably couldn't imagine the future of this mere boy. Now
Mary and Joseph knew that something was afoot...and so did the extended
family (Elizabeth and Zechariah, for example). But did that change the
way they interacted with this boy? Did it change the way he was
taught? The games he played? The friends he had? The chores he did?

In the reading from 1 Samuel, we get a little insight into the way
young Samuel's mother, father and the priest Eli honored his special
existence. Remember that Hannah was barren and promised that if God
would only grant her a son, she would raise him up for the priesthood.
Here in four verses, we see Hannah preparing wee priestly robes
annually for the family's visit to sacrifice at the Temple. We imagine
this set them apart somehow...and especially Samuel. He received
"special" treatment and preparation. What was Hannah's hope?

The Psalmist sings a song of praise which can also be read as
a teaching / shaping psalm. We assume these words were not intended
only for the writer and God. Like so many of our modern hymns, the
words are intended for the singer, the Reciepient (God), and also as an
educational tool. To have someone with the experience of Praising God
share that experience with folks who have not, provides an educational
opportunity for the less experienced.

In Paul's letter to the
Colossians, he is advising them, as God's chosen ones, to adopt a
spirit of love toward those around them. He uses the metaphor of
"clothing oneself" to recommend their approach to others. He
specifically advises that they are "clothed" in compassion, kindness,
humility, meekness and patience. And we wonder, what do the children
in our midst understand and take away from the way we approach one
another - the attitudes we project. Based on dinner time dialogue with
our own crew, we know that kids are always paying attention and very
little escapes their observations. Paul's teaching is an underpinning
of our modern understanding of a "golden rule." What do we remember
from our own childhood of how adults in our lives treated others? Does
that shape our current approach to others?

Finally, in Luke's gospel, we experience some of the panic
that
Mary and Joseph must have felt as they departed from their annual
celebrations in Jerusalem and traveled a full day only to discover that
their adolescent boy Jesus was not among the pilgrims. We can imagine
a range of emotions - panic, outrage, anger, grief, terror, anxiety.
And they retrace their steps and after three days (THREE DAYS!), they
find Jesus sitting among the teachers in the temple. And Jesus seems
to calmly say (of course, it could have been in an snarky, adolescent
tone also), "what were you worried about...of course I would be in
my Father's house." Do you suppose Mary clocked him for being surly?
But here he is, mounting a non-aggressive challenge to the role these
caregivers have played. He is in his Father's house. How did Joseph
feel hearing that? And yet, there is something akin to this moment in
each of our adolescent history, isn't there? Don't you know who I am?
Or whose I am? What was our parent's response? What was our parental
response?

Each of is someone's child. Each of is a child of God. Each of
us, whether we signed up for the task or not, influences a next
generation - perhaps Nobel prize winners, pastors, world leaders.
Contained in a single person, shaped by the world.

You know...the little preamble that a writer often gives us (the reader) before the book really Starts. Now we are not talking about the Foreword. The Foreword is often written by someone else other than that book's writer....usually talking about how this book or this writer is breaking new ground and finding new horizons, etc.

The Preface can be such a wonderful warm up to the book itself. Sure, sometimes it is a drag, but so many times we get the chance to sort of step in to the writer's head a little. We get an understanding of the intention of what the purpose of the book is and how it is arranged and how it is intended to develop. Sometimes the Preface is the most coherent part of a book!

We see the season of Advent as something of a Preface. Especially the writings that are chosen for the Advent lectionary cycles. The writings of the prophets and the writings of the gospels are all attempting to set the stage for the purpose, intention, and scope of the life of Christ.

This week in particular, the selected scriptures read like the Preface to the story of Jesus that is about to begin.

First, in Micah we hear the words of a prophet who was hoping and expecting a difference to occur. In a day when most of the other prophets (he was writing in about the same time as Isaiah) were singing the praises of Jerusalem / Mount Zion, he singled out Bethlehem as the place from which the Messiah would come. He was looking toward how things would be different one day when the fortunes of Israel changed again.

The next bit of Hopeful Preface we receive comes from the Psalmist. He prays, as he does so often, that there might be restoration. He prays for a future that will be better and different from the anger, tears, scorn, and derision his people are currently experiencing.

In the passage from Hebrews the writer imagines what sort of conversation Jesus might have had....sort of what Jesus might have written as his own Preface before coming in to the world. The purpose of the passage is to help further explain the purpose and intention of the coming of Christ. Now remember that this passage is written to an early Christian community AFTER Christ's ministry, death and resurrection. We as readers are invited to read this as preface, but in reality it was a bit of an epilogue.

And finally we have the beautiful story of Mary (the mother of Jesus) visiting her cousin Elizabeth. At this point, we know that Mary knows Who / What she was carrying, and we know that her Older (barren) cousin Elizabeth had been graced to give birth to John (later to become John the Baptist / John the Baptizer / Saint John the Forerunner). And when Mary walks in, Elizabeth calls out, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." Then Mary goes on to give a bit of a Preface to the life she was carrying in her womb.

Have you ever thought of your life as a Preface to something to come?Is there any chance that you are being prepared for some great work to come?

How are we invited during advent to use the season as Preface to something that is next?

Are you familiar with the phrase, "The past as Preface?" What of our shared past as children of Abraham and/or as Christians may be Preface?

This is a question that many have taken and repeated from the writer of Psalm 121. It is our guess that he borrowed the question from someone else too.It is such an important question in so many different ways and from so many different perspectives.

As we read this week's lectionary readings, this Eternal Question popped up in a slightly different way: Where does our Salvation / Restoration come from?

As any of us read through the Hebrew scriptures we can see a hundred different ways that the followers of Yahweh found themselves in a tight spot and looked at each other or to the Heavens and asked--Where Will Our Help Come From? This doesn't change much when we look at the Christian scriptures. The circumstances are a bit different--the rulers are Romans rather than Egyptians--but the question is motivated from a similar place: we are in desperate straits, our future is bleak, we are oppressed, we are persecuted....Where Will Our Help Come From?

The scripture readings this week offer two different types of answers. Now, we do not think we can take these four passages and make a generalization that these are the only two types of responses found in scripture, but it is true that these two are pretty popular.The first type of answer to the question is represented by two passages from the Hebrew scriptures. The first is from the prophet Zephaniah and the second from the prophet Isaiah. You should read the passages. Both of them portray that Salvation / Restoration is something that will come / has come to the people from Outside of them somewhere. Yahweh will take away judgements, provide victory, renew his love, remove disaster, deal with oppressors, save the lame and outcast, bring you home, and restore your fortunes. God does these things for you and your response is to be grateful and love and praise and rejoice.

Now in the passages we find in Philippians and Luke, we find a second type of answer. As Paul describes to the church in Philipi, it is the responsibility of the individual to first rejoice, be gentle, prayerfully make your thanksgivings known, And Then the Peace of God will come upon you and guard you.

And also in Luke, we see Saint John the Forerunner yelling and spitting at people who have come out to be baptized by him. Now we are not 100% certain why folks were streaming (get it? streaming) to John to be baptized. In fact, John was not certain--he asks, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" And as we see him sharing some less aggressive teaching time with them, we see him encouraging folks to get their own invdividual selves in order--bear worthy fruits, share your stuff, share your food, don't cheat people. And then we see that John is encouraging folks to change their ways because when the Messiah comes, the Messiah will bring judgment. He talks like there might not be a chance to get things straight once the Messiah got there.

As we prepare to celebrate the coming of the Messiah, we should spend some time asking what that might mean.

What sort of Messiah did Isaiah and Sephaniah expect? What sort of Messiah did the people of their day need?What sort of Messiah did John the Baptizer expect? What sort of Messiah did the people of his day need?What sort of Messiah do we expect? What sort of Messiah do we need today? What sort of Salvation / Restoration do you need?Where will you help come from?

Oh Lord,we wait with expectationsometimes with a clear understandingof what we need...And other times, not so much.Be with us in our expectancy and open our eyes and our ears and our soulsto understand your presencein our lives.Amen

Throughout
this season of waiting, we are struck by the reality that this
pilgrimage we find ourselves on has neither an exact beginning nor an
exact end. It is neither all about darkness nor light. It is not all
about the world being bad or good. We are journeying toward something
that we cannot completely know. In particular, this week, we find
ourselves caught in the tension of a spectrum that lies between Destruction and Restoration.

During Advent, as we read the lectionary passages, we remember
that we are observing history and living into the present and
anticipating the future. And as holy scripture, we believe these
selected texts speak in all of these places and times. The Hebrew
scriptures shed light on the prophetic tradition of Israel, of the
Jewish hope in a Messiah. In the gospel texts, we experience first
hand accounts of how early followers interpreted and understood the
birth of Christ looking back from his resurrection. And in the
epistles, we consider how the earliest churches were interpreting their
experience in light of recent history - the destruction of the Temple,
the reality that no life altering second coming had occurred,
and the tenacious belief that there was still hope.

Early on in the Hebrew scriptures, prophets speak of a coming power
- understood to be sent, ordained or empowered by God - who would once
again redeem the lives of the Israelites. This is no rosy picture - as
Malachi prophesies, this is a refining force, one that will remold and
remake the people, purifying them. The result will be a return to
relationship "as in the days of old and as in the former years." The
prophet speaks of a return to a previous order and understanding.

Instead of the typical Psalm, our lectionary readings include the
Canticle of Zechariah, a praise text from the gospel of Luke, spoken by
Zechariah upon the birth of a miraculous son - born to an old couple
who has lost hope. The couple awaits the birth of John - who will be
known as John the Baptizer or John the Forerunner...Already they know
that his birth foretells the coming of a much awaited force for the
Jewish people. And we can't overlook an important role reserved for
John - he has the unique task of bringing people to repentance of their
sins, "to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of
death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." Hmm. None of that
task is particularly finite...it's a step in a new direction. The way
of peace is a path that people will find themselves traveling.

In Paul's letter to the church at Phillipi, we read a fairly
traditional greeting that establishes Paul's relationship with the
community. This is a time of persecution, and this community shares
with Paul a commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ, and awaits the
time when all will be restored. Of particular note is Paul's prayer
that this community's love may overflow with knowledge and insight so
that they will know what is "best." Not what is absolute. What is
best...lying on a spectrum without beginning and end.

Finally, in Luke's gospel, we hear of John's call - in the
wilderness he is called to prepare the way. The text sets a political
stage as well, establishing the prevalence of foreign rule and
control. John sets forth in an occupied land to speak of a new "Lord"
who is not the emperor, not Caesar, not Roman. The text points very
intentionally back to the prophet Isaiah. John's actions are
fulfillment of an expectation now hundreds of years old.

And
so, as we are looking back at the ancient and less ancient Israelite /
Jewish hopes and expectations and understandings of Destruction and
Restoration, what do you imagine they were dreaming toward? Were they
hoping for a return to the way things were before? Were they hoping
for a new and different Kingdom where they replaced the rulers of the
day?

What about today? Are you afraid we are headed toward
Destruction? What would you expect Restoration to look like? Do you /
we have any role or responsibility in either the Destruction or
Restoration?

God we dream of Restoration and we fear Change and Destruction.
We desperately desire things to be Just As We Plan.We often do not appreciate the things we do not know.Help us to find a way to be comfortable with the Unfathomable.